Along came a spider
by Procrastinator-starting2moro
Summary: Grudges can sometimes never disappear, and Lily’s towards James started when they were mere first years, making the mistake of doing the old fashioned nose flicking gag to the wrong redhead. JamesLily. One shot.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing

**A/N:** Thanks to my lovely beta _Luminous Star. _

**Along came a spider**

"Evans, look on your shirt."

Lily placed her hands on her hips, putting on the usual unimpressed look she reserved just for him. She was quite impressed by James' genuinely frightened look as he pointed at her chest.

"Evans, I'm serious," he put up his hands, looking wide-eyed, "There's something furry on your shirt!"

Lily Evans swore she would never fall for that foolish prank again involving the mischievous individual pointing at the victim's chest, the victim looking down and consequently getting flicked in the nose by a finger, followed by much frenzied laughter.

That prank had been the reason she had developed a dislike for James Potter in the first place.

_---_

_Lily, at the age of eleven, sat in the Great Hall after being placed in Gryffindor House and going through the sorting hat routine. She sat at the Gryffindor table, her back straight and hands clasped in her lap, as her mother had told her good posture made a fine impression in making new friends. Unfortunately she felt she had taken a rather unlucky seat, shooting disapproving looks at four particular boys who kept whispering over Professor Dumbledore's eloquent speech of foreshadowing; two in particular being rather boisterous and elbowing each other in the ribs._

_One particularly messy haired boy was staring at her. It unnerved her in many ways. However, he wore glasses, Lily realized. Boys who wore glasses were normally friendly and polite._

_"What are you looking at?" Lily asked him uncomfortably._

_"You," James admitted, with no shame._

_Lily frowned. "Why?" she demanded._

_"Because you have hair the colour of a carrot."_

_James chortled while the boy on his left, Sirius Black, joined in, nodding in agreement._

_Lily grinded her teeth, clenching her fists. Looking for something to make fun of, her eyes locked onto his electrified hair. _

_"You look like you stuck your finger in a socket," Lily retorted, looking rather impressed with such a comeback._

_James and Sirius looked at her blankly, whilst the other two Gryffindor boys, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, silently grinned at Lily's comment._

_James ran a hand through his hair in puzzlement, making strands stand out on end even more. "What's a socket?" he asked confusedly. Lily snorted, clearly thinking he had some sort of brain deficiency for not knowing such a simple thing. _

_"She must be a Muggleborn," Remus told James, sitting across from him._

_Lily's mouth parted a little in bewilderment. She was about to ask the boy what a 'moogle' was, or whatever name he had adopted for her, but the boy with the glasses was pointing at her. _

_"There's a spider on you," James gestured to her chest._

_Immediately Lily let off a horrified scream as she looked down at her front, wailing her hands in the air and on the verge of going into cardiac arrest. She frowned when she realized there was no spider inflicting bodily harm, and suddenly a finger appeared out of nowhere and flicked her nose. _

_"I can't believe she fell for that!"_

_Looking up, she found James clutching his stomach with laughter while Sirius slapped the table in hysterics. Peter was wiping tears of glee from his eyes to accompany James and Sirius' predictable eleven year old reactions to the trick. Remus smiled weakly at Lily, looking apologetic._

_When the golden plates and luxurious food had arrived swiftly after, Lily responded as maturely as possible by _not _responding in such an unruly way that James obviously lived for. After five minutes silence of Lily _still _not seeking any means of revenge, James appeared incredibly guilt-ridden and on edge._

_He pushed his golden plate of food away from him, suddenly feeling ill knowing he'd upset her. "Look, I'm sor-"_

_And that had been the moment she had poured her mushy peas she_'_d been pulping for the last five minutes boldly onto his head._

_--_

"Evans, I'm not kidding!" James protested. "There's a spider on your chest!"

Lily made a scathing snort of laughter. "I'm not falling for that stupid prank of yours again, Potter. There is _nothing _on my shirt." She took an intimidating step forwards and James simultaneously jumped back, pointing at her chest with an utter look of fear.

"Seriously, Evans, stay back," he warned her.

Lily was disturbed by the way he kept staring at her front. "Stop looking at my breasts, Potter!"

"I can't help it!" James pointed a shaky finger, currently pinning himself against a wall to distance himself from her. "There's a giant spider on you!"

Lily couldn't help but be _more _impressed by the crowd of students circled around her, each with a look of terror. When she took a step towards them, they screamed and shuffled backwards, pointing at her chest as James was doing.

"Oh that's rather clever," Lily remarked, "Paying people scream to make it seem more real. Really, you've truly outsmarted yourself this time." She looked to the crowd of onlookers and spotted someone winding their way past, trying to get to the front. She put on a smile when she spotted it was her friend Alice.

"Hey, Alice, let's go to lunch already," Lily said, stepping forward to link arms. Alice immediately jumped away from her, shielding her face. "Oh, not you too!" Lily scowled.

"Lily," Alice separated her fingers to peek with an eye, staring at Lily's front. "You are aware that is a MASSIVE spider on you, right?"

Comprehension dawned on Lily, and she gasped. Alice _never _lied.

Whimpering, Lily slowly peeked downwards and was met with a rather large furry being with eight furry legs and eight accompanied scary eyes.

"AAAAAARGH!"

Not acting rationally in any way, Lily squirmed and ran in circles, panicking.

"Get it off, get it off, _get it off_!" she screamed, wailing her arms out wide. More shrieks were let off as she neared the onlookers, scrambling away from her, making no movement to help. In desperation, she turned to James for aid.

"Get it off, get it off, GET IT OFF!" Lily shrieked, on the verge of tears. She had a theory that spiders would like to devour her and she didn't want it to stick around and prove her right by sucking off her head.

James, relatively frightened by spiders --something he would never admit to his Marauders-- merely stared at the being on Lily's chest. Truth be told, he was rather taking advantage of being able to look at Lily's breasts without receiving a slap, but he was also clueless on what to do.

He couldn't stand Lily's hysterical screaming any longer, so did the first idea that came to mind.

He hit the spider.

Unexpectedly, James' punch had been quite a lucky shot as the spider fell off Lily's chest and to the ground, lifeless and unmoving. Wincing in pain, James shook his fingers because of his fist that for some reason was aching. His hand hurting may have been due to the fact that James had hit a particular body part of Lily's...

"_My boob_!" she exclaimed. She clutched her chest, a look of definite soreness across her face. "_You hit my boob_!" She cried out in pain.

James looked mighty horrified. In any other situation where he'd be able to touch Lily's breast, he would've been jumping with delight. Causing Lily pain however, was a completely different matter.

"Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry!" James apologized, unsure what to do. He watched as Lily cried out again in pain, bending down slightly. "Oh Merlin, crap, bugger," he panicked. As Lily continued to whimper, James again acted with impulses and wrapped his arms round her, pulling her towards his chest. "I'm _so _sorry, Lily. Oh God, please don't knee me."

Oddly, and much to James' surprise, Lily didn't pull away from him and whimpered painfully against his shoulder. "I think you bruised my breast," she murmured.

"I'd kiss the bruise better but considering _what _is bruised... perhaps not."

Slowly, Lily realized what position they were in, frozen against him.

"Can we, er, move one step to the left?" James asked, his breathing nervously quick. "We're standing directly over the scary spider."

"Oh good God yes."

In sync, the two took a side step to the right, still however holding each other. Lily looked up awkwardly into his glasses, which could've been judged as a romantic moment if she wasn't holding one of her bosoms as though that would help numb the pain.

"This is kind of... weird," Lily murmured, reddening.

"Erm," James looked down at her upturned head, noticeably swallowing and trying to find his voice. "You've, er, got something on your chest." He pointed to her front, regardless that Lily was practically pushed up against him anyway.

"Oh no, what is it?" Lily yelled, peeping down. When she discovered nothing there, she was about to go into a 'Lily Evans Livid Lecture of the Day', expecting a particular finger to flick her in the nose. However, her mind was promptly wiped blank when she received a soft kiss on the tip of her nose instead. Within seconds, Lily had forgotten her bruised, battled wounded bosom and was more intent in being kissed by James Potter on the lips, and even more intent in kissing him back.

"They've completely forgotten there's a crowd watching them, haven't they?" Frank Longbottom whispered to his girlfriend, grinning.

"Yep," Alice replied. She dragged Frank away to give the couple some privacy, though they could have chosen somewhere more concealed than a _crowded corridor_. "Why can't you do something romantic like that for me, Frankie?" She sighed, crossing her arms.

"Wait...you want me to _punch _you in the _boob_?"

"…Never mind."


End file.
